How great to feel like you are reading a solid English-lit-type essay about something you enjoy! Clearly Prilleltensky did a little research before writing—the term ‘upset’ as a verb, the hockey and soccer comparisons, the biographical notes about Alekhine—which demonstrates his ability as a writer and left me with number three easily chosen.

Prilleltensky writes with an ease and affability that make for a pleasurable and instructive read. He is flexible in his movement from sports comments (the line: “Plaxico himself was so thrilled that he accidentally shot himself in the leg before the year was out,” about killed me), to classic games by Fischer, to circumstantially-oriented advice, to the “obligatory moment where [Prilleltensky] subject[s] you to a game of [his] own.” His prescience for when a subject should be developed, elaborated upon, or transposed into something else is highly tuned.

This confession, midway through the essay, is an excellent moment of recognition: “Originally, I intended this article to be prescriptive. By pointing out some key characteristics of how upsets happen, I would make the humble CLO reader more likely to achieve one next tournament! But the truth is that chess stubbornly resists generalization; that's why it's so darn hard. If there was a formula for beating the favorite, he wouldn't be the favorite.”—Jessica Martin

Sympathetic and elaborate article on chess upsets with a feel for history and more than personal touch. Very nice.- Arne Moll